Wake Up Narcolepsy’s Medical Advisory Board includes leading scientists, researchers and physicians. These passionate narcolepsy experts provide opinions to WUN’s Board of Directors related to scientific, clinical and public policy matters.
Meet The Experts:
- Dr. Emmanuel Mignot
Emmanuel Mignot MD, PhD – Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Center for Narcolepsy
Dr. Mignot is internationally recognized as having discovered the cause of narcolepsy. He is also known for his discovery of a polymorphism of the “clock” gene that appears to alter individuals’ internal biorhythms and for the finding of a gene variant that predisposes to sleep apnea. Dr. Mignot is a former student of the Ecole Normale Superieure (Ulm, Paris, France). He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Paris V and VI University in France. He practiced medicine in France for several years before serving as a visiting scholar at the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Center and later as a visiting assistant professor at Stanford. He joined the Stanford faculty as acting assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and was named director of the Stanford Center for Narcolepsy in 1993. Dr. Mignot was named professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in 2001.
Dr. Mignot has received numerous research grants and honors, including National Sleep Foundation and National Institute of Health Research Awards, the Narcolepsy Network professional service award, the Drs. C. and F. Demuth 11th Award for Young Investigators in the Neurosciences, the WC Dement Academic Achievement Award in sleep disorders medicine, the CINP and ACNP awards in neuropharmacology and the Jacobaeus prize.
He is the co-author of more than 100 original scientific publications, and he serves on the editorial board of scientific journals in the field of sleep disorders research. Dr. Mignot is an active member of several professional and governmental organizations. Visit Stanford Center for Narcolepsy.
- Dr. Thomas Scammell
Thomas E Scammell, MD - Associate Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Associate Professor, Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Associate Physician, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Dr. Scammell’s lab focuses on the neurobiology of sleep and the neural basis of narcolepsy. Narcolepsy is caused by an extensive and selective loss of the hypothalamic neurons that produce the orexin neuropeptides (also known as hypocretins). This cell loss generally occurs in the teens or young adulthood and results in lifelong sleepiness and cataplexy, brief episodes of muscle weakness that are similar to the paralysis that occurs during REM sleep. Much of Dr. Scammell’s current research focuses on mouse models of narcolepsy because mice lacking orexins also have sleepiness and frequent episodes of cataplexy. Dr. Scammell’s lab hypothesize that orexins normally stabilize the activity of wake-promoting brain regions, but absence of orexins produces behavioral state instability, with rapid transitions from wakefulness into sleep, and intrusions into wakefulness of REM sleep elements such as cataplexy or hallucinations.
The major goals of Dr. Scammell’s lab are to identify the neural mechanisms through which the orexin system controls sleep and wakefulness and to determine how loss of the orexin peptides results in sleepiness and cataplexy. For more information, visit Dr. Thomas Scammell’s Labatory Website.
- Dr. J. Brevard Haynes
Dr. J Brevard Haynes, MD - is a board certified sleep medicine expert with Sleep Medicine of Middle Tennessee and Saint Thomas Physician Services. He specializes in evaluating and treating a variety of sleep disorders, including narcolepsy.
Dr. Haynes has been in private practice since 1979 and founded Sleep Medicine of Middle Tennessee in 2006. He was the first physician in Middle Tennessee to devote his practice exclusively to sleep medicine.
- Dr. Kelly A. Carden
Dr. Kelly A. Carden, MD - is a board certified sleep medicine expert with Sleep Medicine of Middle Tennessee and Saint Thomas Physician Services. She specializes in evaluating and treating a variety of sleep disorders, including narcolepsy.
Dr. Carden joined the practice in 2011. Before coming back to her home state of Tennessee, she completed her sleep medicine fellowship at Harvard and also worked with Sleep Health Centers in Boston as one of its medical directors and as an instructor for the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard University Sleep Medicine Fellowship program.
Dr Indra Narang
Dr. Indra Narang - is the Director of Sleep Medicine at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, and an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics at the University of Toronto. She undertook her fellowship training between London (UK) and Toronto, Canada. She then went on to complete her sleep training at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia under Dr Carole Marcus. Further, Dr Narang completed her doctoral thesis at the University Of London (UK).
Her current clinical and research interests are focussed on 1) Obesity associated obstructive sleep apnea and cardiovascular risk 2) The control of breathing during sleep and 3) Narcolepsy in children.